


Anxious

by Fogfire



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 11:21:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16448978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fogfire/pseuds/Fogfire





	Anxious

“Can I sit with you?”

Clint turns around, looking down from a supporting beam he had been perched on, to see Vision looking up at him.

“I guess you can,” he calls back and Vision all but floats up to him, not sitting but standing on the small surface the beam offers.

They fall silent for a while, an almost comfortable silence that makes Clint able to look past how new to world Vision still is and the fact that not too long ago they had been on opposite sides of a fight.

“You didn’t come up here to enjoy the silence, right?” Clint asks and Vision looks over to him before he shakes his head.

“No.”

“Well, then spill.”

He takes his time to formulate the words in his head before he speaks.

“Wanda has educated me on the topic of Soulmates.”

“What has she told you?”

“Everything she knows. The fact that those of her and her brother never turned up and she believes that it’s because of the experiments they went through.”

“That is quite possible.”

“But everyone else has one?”

“Not everyone,” Clint disagrees, “But most people do. It doesn’t mean you get to meet them, though. The world is a big place and accidents happen every day.”

Vision stares at him without blinking and Clint heaves a sigh.

“My friend’s soulmark suddenly faded” he explained, “Apparently that happens when the other dies. It was a pretty hard time for her.”

“And how did Ms. Romanoff cope with that?” Vision asks, correctly guessing what friend Clint is talking about.

“You ask her about it and see if she lets you live long enough to get an answer,” Clint snaps back but calms down when Vision holds up his hands in defense.

“I do not want to enrage anyone. I do not share the custom of owning a soulmark. Do you have one?”

“Yes,” Clint grumbles, “I have one.”

“And have you found your mate?”

“No. And I don’t really look forward to it anyway.”

“Why?”

Clint heaves another sigh.

“After all this team’s been through I know that trust and loyalty are what holds us together. I can’t have anyone interfering with that.”

“And your soulmate would?”

Instead of answering, Clint pushes his shirt down, revealing the black of words written into his skin just below his collarbone.

“Move and I’ll kill you!” The font betrays the seriousness of the words written out as the dot on the i is painted as a tiny little heart.

“It could be meant as a joke,” Vision offers a weak attempt at consolidation.

Clint snorts.

“In my line of work? Never.”

A month later he’s cutting a path into a dense forest in the middle of nowhere on one of those missions that usually make him overthink his life choices.

What’s good about being an agent when you have to cut yourself a path through a forest so thick that you can’t be sure if the thing creeping down your back are droplets of water or insects. He had found this way of traveling adventurous as a child, especially when he was watching the old Indiana Jones Movies, but living through it himself proved to be a completely different thing.

“Seeing anything?” Natasha’s voice cuts through the sounds around him. Whoever has made the world believe that forests are quiet must have been nuts.

Branches break beneath his feet no matter how quiet he walks. The trees move with the wind he can’t feel, creaking and whispering, and there’s a creek nearby, the water gurgling.

He stills for a moment, his mind bringing back the conversation with Vision from a month ago, right now in a moment where he should focus.

Clint pushes it away, focusing with the mind of an agent who has been through his fill of missions, but the lingering feeling stays. It might be dread, it might be something else, but he knows, his soulmate could be just around the corner and he really does not know what to do when they’ll meet.

“Nothing,” he answers her and steps around a boulder that’s bigger than him when he hears the telltale noise of someone cocking a gun.

He freezes, turning his head slowly to the side. A woman’s facing him, her face a look of sheer determination, a shotgun ready and aiming at his head.

“Move and I’ll kill you!” She hisses and he can’t help the chuckle slipping out.

He’s had half a life to think about what he’s going to answer her, something sweet, something threatening, he could never decide, but now his mouth seems to have a life of his own, the words tumbling out.

“I’d rather you don’t, Sweetheart,” he tells her and she squints at him.

“Are you freakin kiddin me?” She growls, her accent heavy. “Are you S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Why, are you?”

“I freakin asked you first!” She doesn’t move the gun and he slowly puts two fingers against his temple as a salute.

“Clint Barton, to your service.”

“Who are you talking to, Clint?” Natasha asks in his ear, but he’s unable to listen to her or answer as he’s watching the woman across from him closely.

He’s had seen pictures of her beforehand, as the mission was to establish contact to her, one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who had been on missions as S.H.I.E.L.D. had been brought down. It was time for her to come home as soon as it could be cleared that she was not one of Hydra.

The pictures did her no justice, he thought, even though her face and clothes are dirty from living in the woods, she holds herself high, showing him something he had never found as attractive in other women as he did in her. She has confidence.

Her eyes strike him the most, she’s looking at him as if she can see right into his soul and skim through his secrets as if he’s an open book.

She lowers the gun and he breathes out slowly.

“You know who I am?” She asks him and he blinked.

“My Soulmate?” He whispers, anxiousness welling up inside his stomach.

She throws her head back laughing but calming down quickly.

“Not that, you idiot,” she smiles at him in amusement and the anxiousness dribbling away.

Five hours later they’ve cleared her.

He can’t stand being in the same room as her when he’s unable to touch her but not being able to see her seems almost as hard.

And then there’s Natasha looking at him in a way that he doesn’t like.

“Don’t,” he tells her softly, “This won’t change anything between us.”

She laughs, humorlessly. “Yes, it will Clint. She’s your soulmate. If you don’t do everything to keep her around, I’ll have to forget that we’re friends and hurt you. And you don’t want that.”

“But I-”

“Talk to her,” She says, nudging him, “I’ll give you an hour before I drag you both on the jet.”

“Lover?” She asks as he walks to her, looking over to where Natasha’s leaving.

“What? No! Oh god, no! She’s just my best friend.”

“You’re pretty close,” she tells him, “Her opinion matters to you. Especially her opinion about me.”

“It’s not that,” he pushes his hands into the pockets of his trousers to keep them from fiddling, “She likes you.”

“Hmm,” she squints at him, “I don’t know if I’m reading you right, but you’re either not sure if you like me yet or you’re not ready to admit to yourself that you like me.”

He breathes out, a smile starting to grow on his lips.

“Is that the soulmate thing or why can you read me so easily?”

“Microexpressions, dude,” she tells him with a smirk, “But you’re also pretty easy to read… If you allow me to offer a proposal. I’ll come back with you guys. Meet the team. Get to know you and figure out what I’m going to do next. No stress on me, no stress on you. How does that sound?”

“Like you really are reading me.”

She smirks and reaches out her hand for him to take. His own handwriting circles her wrist like a tattooed bracelet.

“Soulmates, remember?”

He shouldn’t have been that scared, Clint thinks, as he takes her hand.


End file.
